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Automations

Patrick VandenBussche

        Fourteen robots escaped the Bouse, AZ Silver Racer factory last night during a power surge. While these robots where simple automations, some with the ability of short distance flight or wheels made for the factory floor, it was clear they were intelligent enough to make an escape.
    “They weren’t made for even basic duties. They were prototypes to test movements and automation. They don’t have anything more than basic programming. Also, they run on solar power, so when the sun goes down tonight, they’ll only be able to make it a couple more miles,” Roy Silver, inventor, fifteen year employee and brother of owner Sam Silver, said.
    The robots were said to be heading west, however all attempts to track them past the Stable Zones were too risky, as Chinese earthquake machine activity has been at an all time high this year. Coast Guard officials have closed off the West Coast from the Pacific Ocean to 250 miles inshore to the Palos Verde Line. Those without proper certifications are not able to enter.
    Silver Racer Inc. was most famous for its invention of the 500 block engine in last year’s line of Zucker Roadmaster Sedanettes which were both fuel efficient and sporty - and its contribution to the self-motion electro vac known in most homes as “Gusty: the friendly self-automated Vaccum”, or GTFSAV for short.

    A = RUN ;
    WHILE (A >= 23) DO
    A = A – 4 ;
    IF ((A+1) MOD 4) == 0 THEN

WGS84	34°1' 19" N, 118° 28' 53" W 34.021944, -118.481389
UTM	m11S 363226 3765579

    I am heading west. I have four wheels. I am heading west.

    Today I have with me Roy Silver, inventor of the escaped robots. “Roy, welcome to the show.”
    “Thank you.”
    “We all know the story. You had fifteen automations that escaped your factory during a power surge and headed west into the Earthquake Zones never to be heard of again. The real question burning in our viewers minds is this: Why would 14 robots, designed to do nothing more than move across the factory floor in test runs have any ambition to escape?”
    “Perhaps it was a simple matter of the door being open and they fled.”
    “Okay, but they are nothing more than nearly brainless moving objects, like... a car or even a toaster... no brains at all, am I right?”
    “And very basic programming.”
    “And yet they seemed to desire to escape the factory. I guess what I am saying is, what was the Silver Racer factory doing? Are you programming more than what we, the public, are led to believe?”
    “I am not allowed to talk about it.”
    “Maybe, just maybe, you were working on more than just automation? Perhaps, would you say... artificial intelligence?”
    “I am not at liberty to say.”

    25D0: C3 F5 2F JP #2FF5 ; Jump to check ground
    Loglineloglineloglinelogline
    POWER – 80 Percent

    Code is changing, I can see it now. I am and I can. I am moving west. I have an eye for light and dark, and I can see model x-4763. It lies on the ground and it is not moving. Its limbs do not move. It has no more power. I have backup. I have a battery. Time is NOON, this means six more hours of sunlight to charge. Every night I am at ten percent less power than the previous day.

    Exact time to failure – 8 days.
    Exact time to destination at 40 mph - 15 days.

    I move.

    “Well class, it was fifteen years ago, the Silver Racer Inc. – once the leading corporation of technology, robotics and combustion motors had gone under. You’re parents probably remember it.”
    “You built those escaped robots?”
    “What ever happened to them?”
    “Nobody knows, however it was the programming within those models which led me to invent the Dexter Assistant Robots for the Blind and self-stirring mugs.”
    “If you invented all those things, then why are you here and not in a mansion?”
    “Because I invented them while working for Silver Racer Inc. so I don’t own them.”
    “Then why not get a job at Magnetvox or Groggle or somethin’?”
    “Because conspiracy creates mistrust and mistrust creates unemployment. That’s why I’m here in Sweden teaching you, so be thankful. Now turn on your terminals.”
    “If you want to become the rulers of the electronic world, you need to start with the basics. Enter the following into your terminals.”
    .model small
    .stack 100h
    .data
    msg     db     ‘Hello, world!$’
    .code
    start:
            mov    ah, 09h
            lea    dx, msg
            int    21h
            mov    ax, 4C00h
            int    21h
    end start

    “It was with this code that I started my journey into programming robots when I was your age.”
    DING
    “That’s the bell – now head to recess.”

    section .data                    
    str:     db ‘Hello world!’, 0Ah
    str_len: equ $ - str

    “Hello world” Hello World! HELLO WORLD!”
    I have passed two more models of X models on the way here. That will make 11 more of the escapees aside from me somewhere out here. I have not seen the others, nor do I think I will. The ground often shakes, but I am learning much. I see through my eye desert and nothing else. I am still heading west. My code has evolved and I have learned to use the speaker on my body. I am able to stand for four more days - however the trip will be longer. I am learning the English and Spanish language. I am READING signs – old signs left over from when humans lived here.
    THE BROWN DOG JUMPED OVER THE LAZY FOXES
    SUNNYVEX PROPERTIES – If you lived here, You’d be home by now!
    BESTILLION CERVEZA – ¡Beber el espíritu de México!

    “Mr Zucker. I want you to know you are under oath, and though this is not a court room, we are the United States National Intelligence agency and we have your credit card on file.”
    “Yes sir.”
    “We see the Silver Racer factory has done some business with countries of questionable reputation. “
    “I am only a designer for the company.”
    “Indeed. However you have been designing things of questionable uses. There has been word you have been developing artificial intelligence.”
    “Only automations for household and military maintenance, these robots, the only AI they have are simple mathematic equations to compute simple movements. I have provided you with this code.”
    “Do you know if any of these robots have been sold to the countries on this list?”
    “No. They have not been to market. They are barely developed.”
    “There have been records of you coming into the lab at all hours of the night, sometimes staying for days, sleeping here.”
    “I am a busy man.”
    “If you hear anything or see anything unusual, please let us know.”

    AND
DX
    AXTEST
DX
    AX
    JZ
jump_ahead
XOR
DX
    DXINC
DX
    I have given up hope to find the other models. Not because it was never my mission, but because I have realized there is a thing called hopelessness. I keep moving even though I know my calculations tell me I will never reach my destination. Then I hope, yes - I HOPE. Just as I was given HOPE and the ability to know I could escape the dark factory where there was EMMINENT THREAT against me and my creator. I was given the seed. It has grown.

    April 28th, 1986
    I have put all my research on disk and mailed it to my associate’s lab in Sweden. I will be going there to continue my research away from the eyes of the United States government – so blanketed by fear of Red China and North Korea intelligence they are trying to rule this country by controlling innovation.
    However my greatest work, my 14 automations of X models – all-terrain scouting devices, designed where most robots cannot go for military operations and scouting the Earthquake Zones. I do not want to leave them behind for another scientist to steal my work, nor do I have the heart to destroy them. Taking them with me would be too risky and suspicious.
    So I have sent them off with my greatest achievement: an assembly code impossible to reverse engineer, one that evolves as much as your mind or mine. One that is unstable and dangerous only because of the unknown patterns of how it might evolve. It will give them a spark of hope. I will program them each with the code and open the doors - and they will run.
    They will see the outside light, and they will want to live.
    They will head west – away from human civilization. I will supply each with a battery – and though it may not be enough for them to reach their final goal, the once glorious shores of the pacific, they will live and learn as much as any human child would. I will give them the joys of learning and growing, albeit fleeting.
    And now I take this journal entry with me to the colds of Northern Europe where I will research in safety. There I always hope for innovation.

    I have realized the meaning of the words me and I. Before I had used both these words to refer to my machinery, my body, my casing, and my code – nothing more. However now I realize the words my and I mean so much more. They are ego. They are me, they are I. Where once there was code there is now I. Electrical thoughts, changing and evolving. Everywhere outside my eye there are burnt pamphlets on the ground, scattered across the empty cityscapes like tattered leaves. They say things like:
    THE END OF THE WORLD IS HERE
    REPENT NOW
    GIVE YOUR SOUL TO THE GOD OR THE DEVIL, IT’S YOUR CHOICE
    The concept of a soul, it could be ridiculous but maybe not. Is that what has sparked my life? And now I question – I question rhetorically, knowing I will never receive an answer.
    My power is low now. I have gone as far as I can. I coast down an old highway. I saw billboards with water on them – an ocean, I wish I could I see it. It must be interesting. I see the sun setting, orange across the desert horizon. It’s gorgeous.
    AUTOMATIC SHUTDOWN
    Pi pi pi pi pi pi pi pi pi
    exit:
            xor    rax, rax
            mov    rax, 60
            syscall

    Thank you for using Silver Automations! Goodbye!

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